The Princess and the Dragon
by Shufuku
Summary: from the eyes of two individuals who's only wish is to protect one other. but the rapidly decaying world around them takes its toll on them both...
1. Prologue

_The Princess and the Dragon - Prologue_

_There once was a princess who lived in an great kingdom. She was very beautiful and was respected by the people she ruled. Everyone loved her and she loved them as well. And for a long time, there was peace in her land. But there was something strange about the kingdom, for on the outskirts of the farthest farm was a great mountain, and within the mountain, lived a dragon._

_The dragon was always up in the mountain, bellowing smoke up into the sky and quakes could be heard all across the land as it roared in the night. The beast would only come out at night to hunt, so it was rarely ever seen, and when the sun rose, it was back within the safe walls of its cave. Most in the kingdom grew to fear the dragon. Others thought it was looming over the kingdom to be their protector and champion if danger should ever come to the land, but the princess was simply curious. So, one day, she snuck out the confines of her secure castle and traveled up the treacherous mountain to visit the dragon. She knew that it was foolish, but her blind curiosity got the better of her._

_When she got to the cave, she found the ferocious beast lying deep within. The cave was littered with mounds of gold and jewels, for the dragons before him passed their riches down to the next. The princess was amazed at how powerful and magnificent the dragon was. Every breath it took shook the cavern. So, without any hesitation, she walked up to the beast and shouted its name._

_"Dragon!"_

_The dragon immediately woke up staring down at the young princess. Never had he seen a human being up close, and for that matter, in the very cave he called home._

_"What are you doing here human?" it grumbled both surprised and angered that he had been awakened._

_The princess simply smiled, "I am the princess from the kingdom below your mighty mountain, great dragon, and I have ventured to ask you exactly what you're doing up here."_

_The dragon was astonished at how honest she was being, but all at the same time, reluctant, "Why do you want to know such a question? Are your people here to try and slay me? Do they want my gold and jewels? Because if they do, I will burn you and your kingdom to the ground."_

_"Oh no," the princess proclaimed. "I simply wanted to know the truth. Most of my people fear you and others respect you for you are indeed a fearsome dragon. I simply wanted to come to ask directly, if you don't mind my being here."_

_The dragon was flabbergasted. He was more concerned for his safety than the princess probably was. And he was reluctant in allowing her to stay, but eventually, they both came to an agreement that the princess meant him no harm. So, from then on, the princess visited the dragon every night and talked away with him. No matter how many times the two met, they never ran out of questions and answers for one another._

_As time went by, the dragon and princess began to fall in love, but they knew they could not be together because their worlds were simply too different. The dragon wished dearly that he could be a human and similar were the thoughts of the princess. She too wished that somehow, she could be more of a dragon, but despite their ordeal, they were content with their mutual relationship._

_But one day, everything changed..._

_It came without warning or remorse, but a dark evil fell across the land. It swooped into the kingdom and began to eat the young and the old, the men, women, and the children. Anything. It was an unstoppable plague that ripped through the country._

_The dragon knew that the princess whom he loved was in grave danger and swooped into her kingdom to save her. His fire that he bellowed out of his mouth was the only thing that could stop the darkness from consuming its prey. The darkness recoiled in fear of the dragon's deadly flames. But in doing so, the phlogiston could also harm the princess because the fire spread without any control as well. The burning embers frightened the princess even more than the darkness did. The dragon saw that his fire was a potential threat to his beloved so he proclaimed:_

_"Dear princess, I swear to you that I will never use my flames again unless yo instruct me to. I am your sword and you are my sheath..."_

* * *

**_The night before everything happened, I was fixing her dinner..._**


	2. This Morning When I Died

_**-1-**_

_**-This Morning When I Died-**_

Jin Akarai sat up erect, straining his senses to keen into his surroundings. The air in the family dojo was strangely cold. The windows were always open and the birds could be heard in the distance. But even now, the angelic singing of the morning robins was nowhere to be found. There was only the brisk wind blowing the spring cherry blossoms through the window sill. Distant traffic couldn't even be heard. He had only tuned to the sound of a far-off ambulance siren upon waking up that morning. Tokonosu City was big. There should be more ambiences.

Something wasn't right.

He rose from his stooped position and sheathed his gleaming katana and held it to his waist. As off as his morning was turning out to be, he dismissed the thought gave up trying to connect the mental dots. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

Like eating…

Jin's father told him countless times not to practice kendo without putting something in his stomach, and countless times, he disobeyed, not out of disrespect of course, but he had such intrigue for kendo, something as trivial as consuming food was nothing more than a minor annoyance. Jin loved kendo, the art of the sword, and he had the stature to prove it. Kendo Champion of the World. His family was proud of him. His dad was thrilled to . And he would assure Jin that his mother would've felt the same way.

After Jin placed his blade on its revered pedestal and got changed, he shut the door to the dojo and made his way across his backyard into his house through the back patio door. He was greeted by a large portrait of his late mother on the living room wall. Below it was a small shrine in her honor. He walked over to it and lit incense as he bowed and paid his respects.

"Good morning mother," he loved how her blond hair flowed throughout the portrait. Blond and beautiful. He was glad he could at least inherit that trait from her. He would usually keep it tied in two long pony tails, while the remainder of his follicles bounced about the top of his head in every direction. That was his father's side. But he was content with the clash of genes. Being the son of a Japanese delegate is something to be proud as well.

Nao and Haruto Akarai were both elites in the political affairs of Japan and oother countries. They were a team who traveled all around the globe discussing disputes among foreign powers. And their son, Jin, was the one who completed their marriage. He excelled in all of forms of academics and sports and picked up kendo at a young age. He quickly rose through the ranks and became a national icon at the young age of twenty. It would seem that their seemingly perfect world would come crashing down when Nao was killed in a car accident when Jen was twelve, but over the years, the young man and the now widowed husband stuck together and pulled each other through the hardships.

Jin made way into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. Eight years have passed since then. His father was still attending to world-wide affairs. This morning was no different. Jin would be dining alone while his father was probably mulling over some paper work in a dim-lit bedroom I the middle of the night somewhere in France. He chuckled at the thought as he munched on an egg roll. Not really a morning dish, but he was a young guy who was attending college. Something like cooking a full-course breakfast wasn't actually within his expertise. He needed to start getting ready class anyway. It was a fifteen minute walk to Tokonosu University and he needed to make a pit-stop by the convenient store on his way there.

The thought suddenly made his face red, a rarity for him. He was not one to show a lot of emotion, but the seemingly haphazard thought of the girl who worked the front desk caught him off guard. Even though he had managed to exchange numbers with her, that one gesture was as much as he could muster for the moment. There was the occasional awkward text message, but that was it.

Her name was Asuka. Asuka Kirishima. She attended the same university, but they rarely saw one another during the day or spoke in mutual conversation. She was a maestro in gymnastics and dance and was rather popular with the other girls and eye candy to the men. No doubt she was beautiful. A royal presence to some. Her porcelain skin, perfect curves, long, black hair that came down to the small of her back, and her deep blue eyes would entrance anyone. Akira was not excluded. But he was rather withdrawn from the normality of rushing her along with the rest of the crowd as she would change from class-to-class. He would simply see her as he would walk by. And was all he would think would happen.

But things started to elevate when he noticed that she had attended one of the kendo tournaments he was participating in. They had exchanged glances through the crowd. And it was in that moment that the both of them knew that the gravity of their two worlds began to collide in every good way. It started with a casual "hello", then a smile or two. Then, they both discovered that his house and her job were only five minutes away from one another. Granted, it was awkward how he came walking into the store and coincidentally toppled over a stack of duct tape after noticing her stocking a shelf. The encounter lead to them both picking up the mess together.

In the end, they exchanged numbers.

He felt very accomplished...

He shook himself out of the delirium and rose from his seat. He might not have been sure of what to do about the particular situation, but he knew that at least, getting to see her every day before class was equally satisfying.

He started to make his way towards his room, but he noticed a slight shift in the atmosphere. He could hear multiple sirens in the distance. A sudden shiver crept up his spine as he began to tune in once again to the world around him.

Something was definitely off.

He frowned.

He made his way to the closest window and took a look outside.

There was smoke…pillars of smoke coming from within the bowels of downtown. A helicopter could be spotted flying through the sky. No, it was two. Three. No, five…

"What in the-" he managed to muster before a blood-curdling scream broke the eerie silence of his home.

A very gruesome and bone-chilling scream...

The desperate plea for salvation was coming from the street in front of his home. With incredible agility and precision, Jin ran through his kitchen and towards the front door. By the time he grabbed the doorknob and flung the latch free, the sounds of hysteria could be heard in every direction. The scream was merely the triggering he needed for the reality of the situation to come to life. Cars colliding with one another. More screams of tear resonated through the airway. Fire sirens and cop cars littered the streets as men and women ran in terror.

What was going on?

He bolted across his front lawn towards the direction of the cry for help. It wasn't long before he could make out a figure at the front gate of his abode. It was a woman who was crying furiously with one hand reaching through the bars in his direction, her eyes…wide and desperate.

_**"PLEASE HELP ME! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HELP ME!"**_

Instincts began to set in. "Hold on!" he shouted as the gate got closer. Why the hell did he have to have such a large front lawn at a time like this? He was within arms-reach of her when she suddenly began to go into a series of seizures. Her eyes rolled back and she began to cough up an alarmingly large amount of blood. Jin dug his heels into the dirt and stopped cold in his tracks. His eyes widened as he looked on through the other side of the gate as the she began to go into convulsions, twisting and turning in a malformed manner.

_This isn't natural._

She fell to the ground, flimsily landing on her neck, snapping it without a doubt and with that, all the life left her. His body tensed instinctively as he slowly opened the gate and made his way around the other side to investigate the now lifeless woman before his feet.

_This isn't making sense. She was just screaming for help, and now she just dies. Is she infected with something?_

He knelt down to check her pulse. Nothing. He skin was cold and brittle, turning a purplish color. It was like she began to rot away on the spot. A horrid stench crept form her pores. The only thing he noticed that might have inflicted some type of damage to her body was an open gash on her wrist.

It looked like a bite.

He turned his attention to his driveway. His house-more of an estate-was strategically set atop a foothill overlooking Tokonosu City.

_She must have walked all the way up here. _There was a trail of blood leading up to the gate.

He began to connect the dots.

_Whatever happened to her must be the cause of what's going on throughout the city. This must be some type of disease that is transmitted through open wounds._

He frowned, _but that doesn't explain the mass hysteria. Not everyone could be running around with open wounds. Is it air-born? No, that can't be. If I was this close to her, I would be feeling immediate effects myself. If it were a disease transmitted through the air, the lethality would be almost sudden. Yet, I feel nothing._

Pretty early to be drawing to that kind of conclusion, but he was pretty certain of it.

_Only time would tell, I suppose._

Something wasn't making sense. He rose from the victim after closing her eyes with his hand.

"May you rest in peace…"

The more he thought about it, the more real it became to him.

_I'm going to need water, bandages, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide to treat wounds. People are hurting out there and I need to help._

He turned back towards his house when a sudden movement caught his attention in his peripheral. It was coming from the woman. He slowly scanned the lifeless form to make sure he wasn't just imagining things.

Then she moved again. This time, her entire body was churning. She was slowly rising from the ground. There was no mistaking it.

He quickly stepped backwards. There was no way she should be moving…but she was.

Everything in his body screamed _**"danger"**_, so he readied himself like he was staring down an opponent.

Blood was spouting from every orifice of her body. She wasn't a human anymore, she was a body-bag of organs.

"Stay away…" he warned her as she stood as straight as possible and began to walk towards him. Her neck swung back and forth, not being able to support the weight of her head. Dry groans spewed from her decaying lips as she made awkwardly large steps in his direction.

"I'm not going to tell you again," he spoke louder, his hands clenched. "**Stay**.** Back**."

She dismissed the warning entirely, lunging her body at him. He retaliated by side-stepping her attack and quickly round-housed her in the stomach with expert precision, sending her flying backwards and slamming into the grass. With that, he turned tail and ran back towards his house.

_I'm going to need my sword…_

Whatever was going on, he was going to have to use force. Lots of force.

His thoughts then drifted to the girl at the convenient store.

_Asuka…I…I need to call her. Find her. And fast._


End file.
